“After I had made up my mind to leave you and go back to Italy, my one fear was that you would come after me and rob me of the child. To keep you from doing that I invented the story of its death. Myself alone, after the letter I had written you, I knew you would not trouble yourself to come after.” “Never was there a more heartless and cruel fraud perpetrated on anyone!” For the first time his voice vibrated with a suppressed emotion. Not for a little while would he trust himself to say more. Giovanna’s only reply was a slight lifting of her brows. “When you grew better and left the hospital did you make no effort to recover your child?” demanded John as soon as he felt that he could command himself sufficiently to speak again. “I made every effort a woman in my position could make. You must remember that I had been robbed of money, clothes, everything. I was utterly destitute. Some charitable people interested themselves in my case and the police were communicated with, but nothing came of their inquiries. Then a wild notion took hold of me that the woman, in the belief that I was past recovery, might have made her way to Italy with the child, and that I should find it under my father’s roof when I got back to Catanzaro. The same charitable people found me enough money to take me home; but as you know, neither the woman nor my child was there. After that, rather than be called upon to tell and tell again the history of that time, I preferred to give it out that my child was dead. To my father alone was the truth known.” She ceased, and to John Clare it seemed that there was nothing more to be said. He had learnt all that he had come to learn. The missing links had been found; not one was wanting; the chain was complete. “There is no reason why I should intrude myself any longer upon you,” he said as he rose and pushed back his chair. “You have been frankness itself with me, and so far I thank you. I know not what your pecuniary resources are, nor do I seek to know, but I do not forget that you are still my wife and that, as such, a monetary arrangement of some kind will have to be come to with you. I will take my father’s opinion in the matter, and in the course of a few days my lawyer shall be instructed to communicate with you.” “And my child—the child of whom I was robbed!” It was like the cry of some animal despoiled of its young made articulate. She had started to her feet as it broke from her lips, and she now confronted him with heaving bosom and extended hands, her face marble-white and her great black eyes glowing with intense fire. John had taken up his hat and had reached the door, when her cry caused him to turn.